Tubegazing

(TNT, Aug. 5, 8 p.m.): This six-part miniseries, based on the Robert Littell novel of the same name, is a dark meditation on the corrupting effect of deception over several decades. It follows the evolution of the CIA – Berlin in the 1950s, the Bay of Pigs, and a desperate career-engulfing search for a Soviet spy – and ends in the final days of Gorbachev's deconstruction of communism. Michael Keaton is exceptional as a bitter spycatcher and Alfred Molina plays a flinty-eyed realist. LeCarré-like in its disillusionment with power, this is good historical fiction for warm August nights. Grade:B+